She forgets the exact words her grandmother used and the precise details, but certain images remain vivid. These images are what caused her to wonder; if she tells the story properly these children, too, will begin to wonder.

Yet today in Rajasthan grandmothers feel humbled; their changing worlds remind them of the limits of their knowledge, and they do not see these mysteries reflected in their stories. They become awkward with the modern way of life that the young seem to have mastered and lose sight of their own wisdom. They cannot speak the pure Hindi their grandchildren learn to speak at school nor make sense of the English nursery rhymes they read out of books. They believe that the children will learn more from copying sums and sentences, will be more entertained by television serials made in Bombay and Delhi.

But the children still want to learn. If they do not hear stories from their grandmothers, then they take them from their teachers, from books, from television. This is not the tradition of storytelling as it was but as it has become. The process has been altered, but the creative urge is the same.

I spent time with the students of the Digantar School in Rajasthan’s capital city, Jaipur, and learned much about the regeneration of culture. Some may claim that traditions are lost in the modern world, but from these students I learned new ways of braiding my hair, of building kites from tissue paper and bamboo, of break dancing to Michael Jackson songs, and of decorating my hands with henna paste. They do not distinguish the roots of various traditions and separate them, but they respect their power and revitalize the forms with their enthusiasm and originality. This is a force we must honor.

A child who is excited about an adventure film she sees in a local cinema is also a child who may love to hear an ancient story. Unlike a new game or dance step, children cannot easily take up a story they like and tell it properly: They leave out many points in the narrative that give it its logical sense, they hurry through without properly describing the characters, and they do not allow the attentions of their audience to become part of the telling. But anyone listening to their rendering of the story will know the force behind it. The children have heard the story and have begun wondering over the mysteries within the images. The seeds have been planted and the tree will grow.

When I sat in a circle on the concrete floor of Digantar School with twenty children and asked what their favorite story was, they remained silent.